Chapter 18

Hill's attention span, though, had proved up to the challenge and more; while keeping one eye on Meier, and occasionally extending a hand to restrain him as he scampered energetically about her feet, she was also engaged in a discussion about chemical interactions with her native counterpart. As she noticed Meiersdottir she interrupted her conversation to call out.

"Hey, Amanda. Welcome back. You want to take this little hellion off my hands? He's been saying it's lunch-time. I was going to do it, but probably better you."

Meiersdottir grinned and scooped up Meier efficiently as she walked past. "Thanks, Rory," she said. "Say thank you, Rory," she added to Meier, who obediently did so. "You too, Zo," she called to the sergeant, who was nearby.

Igwanda waited until Meier had been fed and put down for his nap to contact Miller on board the Gardener. As he'd anticipated, the major promptly raised a host of security-based objections to their planned excursion. When Igwanda cited his wife's name and authority as the reasons for his request, Miller immediately wanted to speak to Meiersdottir.

"At one time I recall your wondering about the function of a logistics coordinator," the colonel replied smoothly. "Well, Maj. Miller, this is it; this is what I do on this voyage. I am conveying Dr. Meiersdottir's wishes, her orders."

Ultimately, as Igwanda knew he must, Miller acceded. But he did so with the caveat the colonel had expected.

"We'll send Ms. Cherney and the lander," he said. "But if Dr. Meiersdottir is going to be absent for a period of time, I expect she'll understand that the lander's going to come empty. I can't in good conscience approve an expansion of the planetside contingent under those circumstances."

Since that suited his own preferences, in light of the information they'd received that morning, Igwanda offered no demur. There would be time to deal with that question once the immediate problem had been disposed of.

Thus it was that Meiersdottir and her husband found themselves boarding the lander the next morning. This time Meier would go with them, partly because they expected to be meeting Akeelakhing, the child's sort of unofficial Edenite godmother, but in considerably greater part because they didn't want to leave their son with surrogates for what might be a day-long or even more extensive stay.

Records of the previous visit gave them an approximate location for the alien outpost, and they figured there would be little difficulty locating it from the air. And so it in fact proved; the new settlement already boasted one fairly large rectangular building, which if the aliens' norm held true probably overlay their copper mine; and indeed, smoke was emanating from a rudely built chimney signifying possible ore extraction taking place within. There was, as at the original Edenite settlement, a small but noticeable slag pile adjacent.

En route both had immediately positioned themselves at the lander's small windows, searching the ground below for the two opposing forces that Gagugakhing said had been dispatched. Igwanda, much more accustomed to aerial surveillance, quickly spotted the force sent out by the original settlement, which he estimated as perhaps two hundred strong, and gestured to Meiersdottir. Their would-be antagonists were fewer in number, fifty or so, but he also could pick them out.